Retronator

retronator:

I made this little room scene to test out what kind of results my new physically based rendering engine can give me (you can read more about its development in the PBR and 3D Paint posts on my devlog). 

I was quite worried throughout the process of drawing this since my pixel-art-to-3D conversion is still quite shit, but seeing the end results now I have to say I’m quite pleased. It’s weird and unique and somehow very inviting. I can easily see how I’d want to keep returning to a game world that looked like this. Can’t wait to put this into Pixel Art Academy.

Update: I’ve now given two demos here at Spelkollektivet about how my tool works. You can see the recordings below, with extensive Q&A sections each time.

First presentation was recorded just before I did the bedroom scene and shows the general workflow of 3D Paint:

Next week I explained things again in context of the bedroom scene, answering new questions that came up:

For development updates, check the 3D Paint tag on my devlog.

I made this little room scene to test out what kind of results my new physically based rendering engine can give me (you can read more about its development in the PBR and 3D Paint posts on my devlog). 

I was quite worried throughout the process of drawing this since my pixel-art-to-3D conversion is still quite shit, but seeing the end results now I have to say I’m quite pleased. It’s weird and unique and somehow very inviting. I can easily see how I’d want to keep returning to a game world that looked like this. Can’t wait to put this into Pixel Art Academy.

I implemented 3 ways to render translucent surfaces in the graphics engine for Pixel Art Academy.

The first (red glass) is your typical 3D engine/Photoshop transparency. The second (blue glass) forces the objects seen through the glass to use the same color ramp. Finally, the third uses dithering, useful to represent surfaces such as mesh panels or a chain-link fence.

This is all drawn in 2D with my custom tool called 3D Paint that creates 3D geometry based on a 2D image. You can read more about it on the devlog.

Update on my pixel art/3D modeling tool I’m making to create art for Pixel Art Academy.

I started building the first location for the game, Retronator HQ Art Gallery. Note that the scene is all hand-painted with pixels and not done with traditional 3D software. My algorithm creates the 3D model based on surface normals automatically and since the result is indeed in 3D, I can then apply any kind of camera transitions to the scene. The video above is a test of such camera movements that I just finished implementing.

More details about how everything works can be found on the devlog.

This is a proof of concept for 3D Paint, a new pixel art software I’m writing for Pixel Art Academy. 

Technical information how this works can be found on my Patreon devlog.